The bishop followed, not without evident reluctance; for though he lacked not courage in some respects, yet it was tempered with a strong and lively regard for his own safety. He recollected, however, the necessity there was for judging personally of the skill of the Arabian physician, and entered the hut with a stateliness of manner calculated, as he thought, to impose respect on the stranger.
The prelate was, indeed, a striking and commanding figure. In his youth he had been eminently handsome, and even in age was unwilling to appear less so. His episcopal dress was of the richest fashion, trimmed with costly fur, and surrounded by a cope of curious needlework. The rings on his fingers were worth a goodly barony, and the hood which he wore, though now unclasped and thrown back for heat, had studs of pure gold to fasten it around his throat and under his chin when he so inclined. His long beard, now silvered with age, descended over his breast. One of two youthful acolytes who attended him created an artificial shade, peculiar then to the East, by bearing over his head an umbrella of palmetto leaves, while the other refreshed his reverend master by agitating a fan of peacock-feathers.
When the Bishop of Tyre entered the hut of the Scottish knight, the master was absent, and the Moorish physician, whom he had come to see, sat in the very posture in which De Vaux had left him several hours before, cross-legged upon a mat made of twisted leaves, by the side of the patient, who appeared in deep slumber, and whose pulse he felt from time to time. The bishop remained standing before him in silence for two or three minutes, as if expecting some honourable salutation, or at least that the Saracen would seem struck with the dignity of his appearance. But Adonbec el Hakim took no notice of him beyond a passing glance, and when the prelate at length saluted him in the lingua franca current in the country, he only replied by the ordinary Oriental greeting, “SALAM ALICUM—Peace be with you.”
“Art thou a physician, infidel?” said the bishop, somewhat mortified at this cold reception. “I would speak with thee on that art.”
“If thou knewest aught of medicine,” answered El Hakim, “thou wouldst be aware that physicians hold no counsel or debate in the sick chamber of their patient. Hear,” he added, as the low growling of the staghound was heard from the inner hut, “even the dog might teach thee reason, Ulemat. His instinct teaches him to suppress his barking in the sick man's hearing. Come without the tent,” said he, rising and leading the way, “if thou hast ought to say with me.”
Notwithstanding the plainness of the Saracen leech's dress, and his inferiority of size when contrasted with the tall prelate and gigantic English baron, there was something striking in his manner and countenance, which prevented the Bishop of Tyre from expressing strongly the displeasure he felt at this unceremonious rebuke. When without the hut, he gazed upon Adonbec in silence for several minutes before he could fix on the best manner to renew the conversation. No locks were seen under the high bonnet of the Arabian, which hid also part of a brow that seemed lofty and expanded, smooth, and free from wrinkles, as were his cheeks, where they were seen under the shade of his long beard. We have elsewhere noticed the piercing quality of his dark eyes.
The prelate, struck with his apparent youth, at length broke a pause, which the other seemed in no haste to interrupt, by demanding of the Arabian how old he was?
“The years of ordinary men,” said the Saracen, “are counted by their wrinkles; those of sages by their studies. I dare not call myself older than a hundred revolutions of the Hegira.” [Meaning that his attainments were those which might have been made in a hundred years.]
The Baron of Gilsland, who took this for a literal assertion that he was a century old, looked doubtfully upon the prelate, who, though he better understood the meaning of El Hakim, answered his glance by mysteriously shaking his head. He resumed an air of importance when he again authoritatively demanded what evidence Adonbec could produce of his medical proficiency.
“Ye have the word of the mighty Saladin,” said the sage, touching his cap in sign of reverence—“a word which was never broken towards friend or foe. What, Nazarene, wouldst thou demand more?”